Have feelings for a good friend but her family are conservative Catholic

[Riggybee]

It's riggybee (F),

I really like this one girl in my class, but we are pretty good friends and I don't really want to mess with that. She's gay and I'm pretty sure I am too and Ive spoken to her about it before, but never really explicitly come out to anyone cause that doesn't really feel right at the moment. 

Last year, she told some of her friends about this and I kind of got mad because it wasn't really something I was wanting to share with anyone else. After that things were kind of weird but I decided that I still really want to be friends so I think we've moved on really well now! 

I've had a massive crush on her since year 10 and I'm pretty sure she liked me too, but we haven't really done too much about it. Texting her mostly kind of feels like flirting and I'm always really happy to see her but when she's gone I just feel anxious about the whole thing. I kind of want to tell her how I feel but don't want to ruin our friendship cause it was hard to rebuild. 

Also her family are super conservative Catholics, and I think there was some kind of issue with her parents being concerned about her being 'influenced' when she was in early high school, but I don't know the whole story. Sometimes I felt this could be why she kind of holds back a bit? I spoke to one of my friends and she believes this girl I like is just concerned about damaging things again too.

With HSC in a few weeks, I'm not sure if now is the right time to test things out and I feel like I'm overthinking it all so I analyse all of our interactions to see if she feels the same way. Would be good to hear someone else's thoughts and advice 🙂

[Croix]

Dear Riggybee~

Welcome back to the Forum, it's good to hear from you again. I remeber you mentioning in the past you were not sure if you were gay or not. It can take a long time to come up with an answer, and it may not be all black or white, but somewhere in between. I guess as you gain more expereince it will help you know more about yourself -there is no hurry and no need to come up with a definite answer.

Having a crush on someone is a funny sort of deal and it tends to be one-sided (or it did for me anyway). If you want a friendship with this girl then it has to be two-way and that means you both have to talk with each other. It's the only way to understand how she feels and any problems she may have faced, and the same for her about you.

How you approach this conversation can be a bit hard, and bear in mind she may tell others as she has in the past. Still I'm sure you will find a way. My approach was to be quite straightforward when I was attracted to someone, however I was lucky with that way, it does not mean it works for everyone. Perhaps QLIFE (I expect you might have been there already) has some advice.

There are of course a couple of things, one you very sensibly mentioned yourself about the right time. As you are both really occupied with the HSC perhaps it might be better to wait until after as saying you are attracted to someone can lead in any sort of direction and neither of you may want the distraction at the moment.

The other possible hassle is your friend's family life. If they have strong religious beliefs they may not be in favor of same-sex relationships and for your friend to go against their wishes might be super hard. something ot talk over wiht her when the time is right.

From this and your previous posts you sound a lovely person, and I'm sure this will be seen by others too.

Croix